The Doctor's Granddaughter
by RisingWinter
Summary: Susan survived the Time War. She's determined to reunite with her grandfather, but he's not so keen. On top of that, she's facing her first regeneration and the risk of breaking timelines. How backwards to feel like the mature one next to him. (Cycles through the regenerations out of order up through Twelve.)
1. Chapter 1

Susan grips her rifle tighter. The bulkheads rattle with the rushing of Degradations. Her nose stings with burned flesh and cables. Alarms blare, listing the dangers of lost altitude, oxygen, and the engineering sections. Her throat burns with soot and her lungs ache from overuse.

Fire scorches the hallway and shouts ring off the walls. A bomb goes off and cold space sucks the fire out before the shield reengages and life support kicks back on. She loses time to get her mission done. She grips the device pinned to her pocket for reassurance.

Susan forces a breath and charges into the hallway. Screams erupt and some yell that she's the Doctor. Others cry for her death.

Susan fires and takes out five before they finally get it together and fire back. Some retreat.

Lasers tear through her, but Susan keeps going. She burns through them all before finally breaking through and crashing against the door holding the prisoner. Her body stretches and pulls, its energy depleted. Her veins surge with power.

The hallway goes silent, bodies lost. She giggles to herself and the thrill of it sends a shudder down her spine. She has minutes before another wave.

"No choice, right?" she asks herself before pulling a door-opener and attaching it to the door. Her body burns and with the wear of years and she has to find a rest point soon if she doesn't want to regenerate. She refuses to meet the same fate as most of her classmates.

She stumbles back in time for the opener to go off and blast the door inward. It blows the lock off the door and scars the wall. Another puncture in the hall that takes seconds for the ship to restore the shield and breathability.

She recovers herself. Her body tingles and burns with all the laser holes. She enters the cell.

A man shakes himself free of debris. He must have worked with that loose panel that led to the ship's core system. He doesn't look more than a few hundred years into his generation.

"You planned to blow us up?" Susan asks. "Oh, never mind, let's move!"

"What happened to you?" he demands. Like he's offended by her rescue?

"Laser fire! Come on!"

He shoves the panel aside. "I told you not to get involved! You should have stayed away!"

"And you shouldn't have made that choice for me!"

"Evidently, I couldn't!"

He runs with her through twisting corridors until they find the escape pods. Susan punches in the combinations provided by the Council, but it doesn't go through. Skaro's in origin, captured and twisted by the Cybermen, then recovered and utilized by the Daleks again. It's meant as fodder to be destroyed in the skirmish given its mutilated contents.

"We can't get through from here," Susan says. "Why do they even have escape pods if they never meant for anyone to escape?"

The Doctor nudges her hand aside. "They must have meant for something to get out. Who?"

"Doesn't matter. They won't encode it to be intuitive to the target."

"Daleks are very smart, but they're not that kind of smart."

"Then how did they capture you?"

He opens and closes his mouth. "Because… I wanted them to."

Susan chuckles. "That sounds more like you."

"Yes, I know, it's very unsettling. Nevertheless, have you tried, 'Exterminate?'"

"That was the original passcode. They've changed it."

"Hm, then I'll bet you just need to change the case. See? Let us right in."

"How haven't we beat them yet?"

"Because—" Grandfather twitches and sniffs. "I've already set the thing to explode, so let's make haste."

The pods are tight—built to care for some Dalek cores and little else, no doubt—and Susan struggles to fit in before the doors shut. She barely manages a breath before the thrusters engage and something explodes.

"Grandfather!" The autopilot engages. She can't find an audio connection to other pods. But she finds the navigation system.

"_Arkytoir_!" Grandfather's voice rings in. "Susan, it's taking us to the flagship. If we get to the heart, we can destroy this fleet from the inside!"

"No! We need to get you back to the Council! You're an officer, not a soldier! They'll kill you if—!"

The comm shuts off. He would throw himself into the heart of the chaos and expect to get away with it. No… his waves, though he tries hard to disguise them, betray his intent.

Susan changes navigation to tag his pod. She'd knock him off-course and—

An alarm sounds. A fault in the system sets her on a collision course with him.

She tries to put in coordinates to take her to another ship, but the machine rejects it. She hits the console. "Damn you!"

It errors out again, unrecognizing of her "command." The explosion from their exit ship caused unpredicted damages. She can't troubleshoot it now. She has to get somewhere she can pause and reassess.

"Fine," she hisses. "Follow the Doctor. Let's see if we can pry him out of—"

More alarms. It rings off warnings against chasing the Doctor unarmed and she groans. "Just don't hit him," she says. "Follow. Don't—just disregard the warnings! Shut up! I'm aware of the danger!"

The system quiets. Her insides twist at the thought of alerting everyone to their presence, but the burning ship she left behind already did that.

They approach collision first with Grandfather's pod, then with the flag ship. Susan aches with all the manual adjustments by the time she crashes through the boarding bay.

Whiplash snaps her fingers free of the controls. Her ears ring. Metal shudders and exhaust fills her nose.

The hatch breaks open along the way, leaving her exposed to the Dalek's nigh-unbreathable air.

"Grandfather." She pulls up and steps out, but her boot catches. Edges, broken and sharp, slice the protective layer of her boot and expose the armored insides.

She shakes herself free of the shock before taking in the oversized bay. It's quiet and deserted. The other pod landed further ahead and looks barely touched.

Dread settles in her chest. "Not again," she hisses before running to find him.

The ship is cleaner than any she's seen in at least a hundred years. It doesn't participate in the worst of the fray and that confirms Grandfather's diagnosis of it as the mothership of this fleet. But even if they destroy it, it wouldn't stop the fleet. And he knows that.

Susan follows Grandfather's stifled thoughts and finds him escorted by two lower-ranking Daleks. Only two? After all those warnings?

She ducks behind a support pillar and concentrates on deciphering those scattered thoughts of his. Despite his young face, the tone of his mind sounds ancient. Nine regenerations. And this one already lasted longer than too many of the rest.

She refocuses. He uses old memories to throw potential invaders off, a habit he first started after he realized her potential with the Sensorites. It feels like a child's distractions, but it proves frustratingly effective.

He senses her intrusion and stutters in his act to the Daleks. He falls still and switches mental tracks. He tries to communicate to her a different plan from what he intends on.

"That's it." She takes the last of her destabilizers and hits the two Daleks.

Grandfather mobilizes and shoves one into a hallway crevice. Susan gets the other. "What are you doing?" he demands.

She yanks him aside. "You surrendered yourself! Again! You think they'll spare anyone even after they kill you? It's not a war with the Doctor, they've waged, it's a war with Gallifrey!"

"You think I don't know that?"

"No, I think you're ignoring it! I've had it with your suicide missions! That's what my entire department has focused on lately! We're spending all our hours just keeping you alive!"

"And what if I don't want it, hm? If I'm so valuable, you'd better let me do what I want. Either help me out here or get out of my way!"

"What's changed with you? You used to give everything just to help me and the rest of your companions!"

"Things changed!"

"What things?"

"Gallifrey changed! The Daleks changed! I've changed! … You've changed."

"No more than you!" She tugs on his arm. "Now let's get out of here before you cost us the war!"

"And what does this war matter! It's never going to end, Susan! We'll keep lobbing weapons and extermination orders and it'll never end! It's time someone made a final step!"

"Not here! Not now!"

He fumes. He thinks such terrible things, she flinches at the weight of his intent. He wants to see everything burn and he wants everything to end. His fatigue hits her like a weight.

"We'll figure something out," she says. "High Command is talking about using the Moment or something like it. You're not the only one that's tired of this war!"

"They only say that to sound decisive. They refuse terms and they refuse solutions! They want blood! Maybe it's time someone _else _used the Moment!"

"Not without me!" She pulls on him with all her strength. "Please! Please wait for me before you do something dramatic!"

"Aren't you here already?" He finally moves and each step thuds the ground like a death knell with those heavy boots. "Fine. Let's make a decision together."

"That's not—!" She jogs to keep up with him.

"I'll just leave something for them in the main engine room. Get back to your pod, Susan. I'll handle this!"

"You think I'll trust you not to do something stupid? Ugh! You stubborn old man! Why is it I can never get through to you? All you do is throw me off and leave me alone!"

"For good reason! You only ever bring trouble!"

"And who's the one that goes hunting trouble down and handing it his address every time he moves? Damn it, would you slow down!"

He picks up the pace. She grabs a stunner and catches him in the back. He buckles and drops.

Susan fishes through his pockets and finds no bomb. "The first thing you notice about the Doctor of War," she says, "is that he's an unarmed, bloody idiot!"

She pulls her last explosive free—a moderate grenade—and hooks it up to the first panel she finds. It won't take out the whole ship, but it'll incapacitate them for a good time.

She grabs Grandfather's wrists and drags him back into the hallways and toward their pods. She barely makes it to the docking entrance before the alarms go off. The Daleks that picked up Grandfather never reported in and are unreachable.

Susan curses and drags him down the stairs as fast as she can. He'll wake up with bruises, but given the throbbing from her own wounds, she can't sympathize much.

She packs him into his pod first and sends it off with a course for Gallifrey. She opens the door to hers before that terrible screeching of Dalek anger fills the halls. She buckles in and faces the faulty console.

Laser fire hits the pod and she laughs at how ridiculous this is! She'll die trapped in a docking bay!

But she doesn't have to, because she's the Doctor's granddaughter and she has work to do.

Susan punches in Gallifrey's coordinates and it blares at her for her "stupidity" again. She'd hear enough of that tone when Grandfather realizes she sent him back to High Command.

She grips her pocket device—her panic button—and remembers the coordinates she needs. This ship won't make it out of the docking bay. But she can still regenerate.

"I'm sorry," she whispers and projects it for Grandfather to hear. "But I accomplished the mission."

Then she takes the panic button and punches in the only coordinates she can think of that aren't Gallifreyan. She'll have to find another way back home.

Susan settles in for the ride and reminds herself to breathe before time currents take her. In the distance, someone screams.


	2. Chapter 2

She wakes up among wreckage and a confused farmer couple. The ground is scorched and broken with debris.

They react with shock and horror first, then with intrigue. The husband asks after the parts and if she wants the remains. She stumbles free.

"It's all yours," she says.

She has to find Grandfather. She doesn't remember why. But it's not hard because the next she remembers is walking toward a quaint home in the city outskirts.

Faulty memories. That means trauma. Brain damage? And impending regeneration. She regains her balance, but she's still blinking spots from her eyes. The house looms over her.

She finds him nursing a drink with another man around back. They sit in the pleasant spring air and soak in the last chill wind before England's humid summer would overtake them. They look like two humans together like that. But then, her grandfather spent enough time among these people to become an honorary member of their race.

She waits for the other man to retire and leave the Doctor to some work with a big yellow car. Something went wrong with it… a bad transmitter, perhaps. Send the wrong volt and those things fall right off, it seems.

"Beg your pardon," Susan says in English. "Sir?"

He perks up and raises his bushy brows at her. That hair of his looks like a bunch of cotton balled up and glued to his head. "Yes, dear?" he asks in Gallifreyan-accented English. "Are you quite alright? You're bleeding!"

She touches her forehead and finds it bloody. She thought the wetness came from sweat, but the chill wind reminds her where she stands. "It's nothing."

"Doesn't seem that way to me. Come here, child."

She follows him to the building's kitchen and lets him use a damp cloth against the wound. "You've made quite a home here, haven't you?" she asks.

"Oh. I don't live in this old place. It's the Brigadier's. It does feel like I do, though, doesn't it?" He chuckles to himself and pulls the cloth away. "You look a lot like someone I know. Yet I can't think where I might have seen such a face unless it was generations ago."

She wants to joke and brush it off, but she can't summon the words. To see him so young when she feels older than the mountains… "It's backwards, isn't it?" she asks.

"We run into familiar faces all the time, I'm afraid. Doesn't mean it's backwards."

She refrains from reaching for him. He doesn't talk like her grandfather and for a long moment she wonders if she got it wrong this time. "You've been on earth so a long time," she says, "that you don't smell like space anymore."

He secures her bandage with tape. "I can't leave. Have you been out among the stars, then?"

"Yes. I think they miss you."

"How could you know how stars feel about an old traveler?"

"Maybe I'm one of them."

He chuckles and that soft smile reaches his eyes. "Aren't we all?"

They dance around the question and Susan resists stopping it. Despite his kind words, he slumps against the chair and rubs at his temples. "You look tired," she says instead.

"That's what I should say of you. What trouble did you find before coming here, my dear?"

She blinks away the confusion of fire and a cloud of smoke and machines that blocked out the Gallifreyan sun. Red robes and red stains. "A war."

"There's a war on? I've fallen out of the loop, I suppose."

"Not a war here, one from… far way. Lightyears. And years." Her mind fogs when she tries to remember details and the work of it wears at her bones. "It's nothing."

"What planet are you from, my dear?"

"I… can't remember. It's so far away now."

"Amnesia?"

"… Of a sort."

"Then please, have a rest. There's a couch just over here and…" He stands and looks around, confused. "Hm, I wonder where they moved it this time?"

"No, I'm fine, I promise. I just need a moment before I go back to my… ship."

He settles again and the worry on his face pains her. He worries for her even as a stranger. "Tell me about your home, my dear. The best of it. And the worst, if it helps."

The longing in his voice—she can't imagine how her wanderer of a grandfather survived imprisonment on a single planet. No, a single _continent_. He loved Britain, but one could only enjoy their favorite treat for so long when it's the only thing they eat.

"It's bright," she says. Her throat closes. "It's—it's dry. I never worried about my hair frizzing, especially in the dome of—of plants. My city was out in the open. Not in—oh, I can't even remember it, I can't."

He waves a hand. "Sometimes the best stories are the scattered ones."

She regards him. He makes the appearance of a kindly host, but she sees beneath his careful disguise. She spent too long traveling with him to not to. But why can't he see her if she knows him still so well?

She can't describe Gallifrey. The thought of him realizing who she was leaves a hole in the pit of her stomach. It stretches her lungs beyond use and it tingles in her fingers. "It was golden," she says, remembering a story he once read to her as a child. "Full of life and goodness. Plants shimmered in the morning light and glowed with the moon. The rivers turned silver in the winter and the mountains sung…"

He listens with rapt attention. How backwards. She leaves out the part of the girl that left her beautiful home to find fulfillment in the capitol city. She leaves out his reminder to be good and kind. She leaves out the parts that he added as his unique twist. It renders her words flat. She hates talking about a fake planet with no moral and no flustered quips about the oddities. She misses his reluctant kiss on the forehead before he left for another trip.

"Sounds like paradise," he says at length. "Does it not shine, anymore?"

Susan tries to remember where Gallifrey left to. Something terrible resounds in her gut when she thinks of it, so she distracts herself with those crinkled eyes and the voice that read her bedtime stories. He looks and sounds different, but when she focuses, he sounds… the same.

"No," she says. "Time and hate have worn it from the jewel it used to be."

"Then remember with those other good things. Think not of what it's become, but rest with the memory of what it once was." He smiles at her again but it's one is changed from what she knew. It's worn down from a bright eagerness to a vague hope. The message that there is more to see, but he has resigned himself to what will be and not what is possible.

"If it's not an intrusion," she says, "I've changed my mind. I would like to sleep here."

"Of course, my dear. I'll go find that couch."

She watches him go, all deliberate motion and distracted glances. He doesn't mutter as much as he used to, but he still whispers Gallifreyan under his breath. Without the Tardis, he must have forced himself to learn the local language. He loved Earth, but he never understood why Susan went through the trouble of integrating beyond the help of the Tardis.

And now he has no Tardis. She reminds herself of that every other moment because it's like imagining the sky without stars.

"You know," she says though he can't hear her beyond the door. "It's rather an odd house. But maybe I could imagine living somewhere like this."

"I found it," he says when he found her again. "Though it'll be difficult to extract from its spot with the filing cabinets. Perhaps you'll appreciate some paper for company?"

"First," she says, "I wondered: if this isn't your home, then where is your home?"

He smiles again, but his sadness hits her like a brick. It radiates from him like cold off a frozen pipe. It's laced with suppressed anger and bitterness. "Oh, I have a home. It's also among the stars."

She chills at his faked politeness. The emotions warring inside him aren't directed at her, but it feels as cruel.

"… What's wrong, my dear? You look suddenly unwell."

"I—" She can't think of the words. They all dry up in her throat and sound like mockeries when she means to say them. Not for the first time, she finds herself glad for his clumsy telepathy; his time with silent humans made his mental control even worse.

Though perhaps thanks to her probing, he closes what he can. Maybe he remembered. Maybe she triggered subconscious habits.

"I'm tired," she says at length. His relief washes over her. She's let herself get tangled up in his thoughts and she works to separate again. "I'm just processing, I guess."

"Then let's get you to rest." He turns and she sees the limp.

How long was that there? She probes, just far enough to catch the thought of pain and flashes of an encounter from this morning. Gunshots and sword against stone. He walked on it and flinched every other step. But he didn't complain.

She grabs his hand without thinking and he stops. She asks about his wound and he looks down as if surprised.

"It'll heal," he says, and walks away as if nothing happened.

She spent so long fighting the Daleks, she forgot that it wasn't Gallifrey or Skaro that urged her out of the safe tedium of Earth life. Her memories of traveling with Grandfather dulled over years and she forgot the excitement of opening those doors every time they landed. She forgot the thrill of stepping outside and wondering what next awaited them.

But… he hasn't left Earth in forever. How does he still get himself so entangled in disaster? How does he survive to his ninth regeneration?

At the reminder, she thinks to ask his age now. But she catches herself and instead follows after him. He's tidying up a supply room and greets her with a twinkling smile.

She walks up to him and puts her arms around his middle. He's so tall, she'd have to stretch to reach his neck.

He says nothing. He doesn't even tense up or get awkward. He just rests a hand on hers and pauses his work.

Susan forgets herself in the smell of engine grease and leather. That coat of his must have been cleaned recently for the soft freshness of it, yet it carries a whiff of smoke and rust.

A phone goes off and startles Susan out of her reverie. Too soon, Grandfather leaves her with an apology. He picks up the phone in another room and answers to a "Jo."

Susan stings. Her eyes burn. The fatigue hits her like a weight and reminds her that she couldn't stay the night anyway. She looks to the half-cleared couch and every instinct screams to sleep. It's comfortable here. She could talk to him in the morning and explain everything. She could make a home here and be safe. One person wouldn't change the tides of the war back—

She shakes her head and it anchors her back to the moment. Grandfather's talking about machine parts. The other end is quiet for the moment. Susan can't trace those thoughts.

With twisting regret and shame and angry finality, she slips out the front door.

He doesn't have the Tardis she needs, anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

She doesn't remember leaving that little house, but now she stands on a hill overlooking a vast plain. Wind whips at her coat and at her hair.

"It's cold," she whispers, as if that helps the scene make sense. Rips in her clothes let in the bite of wind and she wishes for the cover of trees if not a house.

She walks the plain, driven by purpose she doesn't remember and by stale memories of maps and destinations.

A lone figure sits on a rock on the next hill and she picks up her pace. He doesn't move at her approach, but he sniffs and asks her purpose.

"I'm looking for the Doctor," she says.

He looks away. "I'm not in the mood to take you home, child. Give me my peace."

"I won't ask you to go anywhere," she says. "You don't have to say anything. I think I can find what I need if I just sit with you."

He doesn't reject her. She sits and curls up against the chilly twilight. She stares after the horizon with him.

"I don't think I'll find what I need on that ocean," she says at length. "Why stare at it so long?"

"You'll never know unless you try."

"The man I'm looking for doesn't spend much time underwater. He prefers to be out and among people instead of the deep sea."

"What's wrong with the sea?"

"He doesn't live with it, so I don't think I'll find him there. Do you?"

"Where else would he be?" He finally looks at her, and with the look he shifts. He grimaces and she imagines he hasn't moved for hours. "Where are you from, young lady?"

"… Far away."

He goes quiet. Twilight fades to night, but the moon illuminated the plain. The roll of these hills stretch on as far as she sees and she understands why he got lost in time here.

"Everyone needs their rest," she says at length. "Including you."

"First, answer me one thing. What's happened to your face, hm? You seem to have changed, yet not…"

Susan touches her bandaged head. The wrapping provided by her Grandfather holds secure, yet worn and ready to be changed. "What do you mean?"

"It reminds me of someone from long ago. Perhaps it's déjà vu, or maybe we've met before?"

She can't bring herself to answer that.

He changes the subject. "You looked for a doctor—did you forget?"

"Not any old doctor. I'm looking for _the_ Doctor."

"Then you're right that you should rest. It's a long walk to the next village, but I might have a shortcut for you."

She panics at the thought of seeing the Tardis again. "Oh, no, I'm quite fine to walk. Really."

"It's twenty miles to the next village. And even they won't have the resources you look like you're used to."

She wants him to recognize her, but the hard lines of his mouth strike her with dread. Maybe she'd be safer if he knew who she was. Or maybe he'd think her a liar.

"Thanks for sitting with me," she says. "And thanks for your offer. But if you won't take a rest as well, then I won't go with you. I believe in equal trade, you know."

"Isn't that a strange negotiation?"

"Aren't we strange people to meet?"

"I thought we promised to talk again?"

Desperation claws at her stomach. Desperation that clashes with fear at the thought of traveling with him again. She wouldn't ask that. But she wants him with her again. She can't think how to ask, so she puts out her hand.

He lets out a long sigh and crosses the distance. He takes her hand and it's warm. It takes her back hundreds of years and hundreds of planets. It doesn't feel any different despite it and a thrill rushes up her spine. Her neck prickles. Her throat dries. Her eyes sting.

"You're cold," he says.

"Aren't you?"

He shrugs to emphasize that jacket of his, and that twinkling smile of his returns. "Let's get you a proper coat."

"Only that." She wants him to hug her. She wants him to reassure her it will turn out for the better. She wants him to dismiss it all as a joke. That the war was over—even though he couldn't fathom it now. That he ran about for fun and games—even though he shows the slightest wince at every motion. That all the bad things that happened until now was a bad dream—even though the bite in her hands and the chill on her skin should have woken her long ago.

He puts his jacket on her and she protests—he needs that! But he insists and she smells a hint of her grandfather in it. Only now dustier, windier, and quiet. She can't find the old river flowers, or the whiff of metallic residue…

… When was the last time he used the Tardis? Did he never get it back? Did he live out the ages on this Earth? He had to be a thousand or two years older than when she last saw him.

They start the long walk and Susan finds herself gripping his shoulder for strength.

"Why do you clench your hand so much?" he asks after a prolonged silence. "Are you angry, my dear?"

She moves the hand to her pocket. "… I'm not sure. Nerves, I suppose."

"Am I that upsetting? Ha! Silly old me."

She searches for his meaning—it pains her to think he might be offended. But she finds him blank.

The surprise of it knocks her off-balance. She catches thought again, but he leaves her so disoriented, she wonders if it really is her grandfather.

Despite the dark and vast fields, she doesn't feel small or alone. There's a dangerous tone to this man and it feels bigger and deeper than anything the Earth has to offer.

"I'll warn you," he says, "that you'd best not pretend to be someone you're not."

Fear flutters in her chest and pushes away the cold. The pain of regeneration splits her skin and she hides the glow in her hand. That's not right. She has something to tell him. "Not yet," she says. "It's important."

"Then why not say it now?"

"Because something's not right." She can't read all his thoughts, but she senses enough of his age to know it's before his ninth. "There's a… secret I can't tell until the right time. And I'm looking for that time."

"… So, you're not a ghost."

"No."

"Then what are you?"

The words tear through her chest like he raked her with a blade. It's been thousands of years for him… but he knew her! He made a point to keep her out of the Time Lords' communication!

But she's not here to interrupt him. She can't disrupt his time leading up to the War. She recovers herself. "Something _like_ a ghost, I suppose. And as bound to Earth as you are."

"I'm not bound."

"Maybe not with chains. But you can leave, can't you? Why don't you?"

He heaves a sigh and looks older for it. His face crinkles up and his frown deepens. "I've work to do."

"What kind of work?"

"Important work."

"And?"

"And a child like you wouldn't understand if I told you."

She catches the lapse in his guard and snatches what memory she can. He's hiding someone and something. He's playing a long game against a bloodthirsty race and aims to ruin them. Venom-saturated fruit and barbed flowers. His images of revenge shake her. He's more distracted than he lets on. How does he block her out like this?

"Is this all you see?" she asks.

"This, what?"

Wind howls over the plains and the horizon is dark. "You walked all the way out here for a reason, didn't you?"

His shoulder sag and his lips draw tight. He doesn't respond. She scrapes at her memories of Earth. They feel far away and surreal now, but she picks a day when a woman with hair of golden fire and toothy smiles reached out to her in class. "If we're going to walk all this way," she says, "then perhaps we can trade stories?"

"… What kind of stories?"

"Silly ones, sweet ones… I imagine you tell great stories!"

He cracks a smile. "Only if you go first."

"Very well. I knew a woman that I thought quiet at first, but she turned out loud in her own way. She was a professor and had the prettiest name. I always felt close to her even though we didn't spend much time together."

"And does this professor have a name?"

"River Song. She always smiled like she had a million secrets and when she laughed, it sounded like a cackle full of happiness. I think it was a new class and the teacher was out sick. But she did such a good job, we begged her to stay longer. The man she substituted kept his holiday!"

She went on about that adventure, and Grandfather warmed up to it. When it came time for his turn, he talked about a misadventure with a toad and a girl with a bat.

She swapped tales of earth invasions and helping civilians. He kept to trivial events and funny ironies. She forgot the fear of his mistrust and gave in to the warmth of his closeness. It took until almost morning before they reached the village, but Susan felt it as moments.

He leaves her there to find a place to sleep and by the time she wakes, he's gone.


	4. Chapter 4

It takes a jump and a lot of asking around to find the Tardis unguarded by an abandoned river.

"Sarah," he says when he sees her. He's all wide eyes and wild curls. He's as tall as the first one she found. "Could you get that extinguisher? I've had a run-in with some fowl."

She closes the Tardis door behind her. It's all the same white circles and ground and white ceiling. He never thought to decorate. But it was here and looked operational.

"Cooking a chicken?" she asks, because he never cooks. He prefers to leave coins on a desk and depart with something already done so he can get to the trouble that really matters.

"No, I kidnapped the royal magistrate of Keivlerri! As it turns out, he's a very irritable master to please!"

Susan finds the extinguisher and runs after him. They run through corridors until he crashes into the bird. It squawks at him and bites at his coat. Susan uses the extinguisher and it calms with an indignant chirp and stalks away.

The Doctor wipes at his forehead and shakes his head. "I don't think this is worth the trouble. Do you?"

"It's royalty." She gives him the extinguisher. "I think it's a defense mechanism developed after generations of kidnappings."

He nods, though she doubts he heard a single word.

"You're not leaving?" she asks.

"No, not quite yet. I'm still missing someone. Hm. I wonder where she is? Or him. They?"

"You've lost track of your companion again?"

"No, no, my companion is right here. But I'm missing someone else."

Susan moves to the main console and searches the floorplans. It's changed since she used it and what used to be her room looks recycled into a library of sorts. The monitor is small, though, so she can't make out details unless she goes there herself.

"You want a tour?" he asks. "You're acting like you've never seen the place."

"In a sense, I haven't."

"Then let me show the parts that matter." He turns away and she follows.

"Shouldn't you rest?" she asks after a time.

"No, no, no! There's no time for that. I don't know when you'll leave again, so it must be quick!"

They made it to Susan's old room, and she wonders when he caught her on the monitor in the main room. It's red-themed still, with drapes and trim and everything reminiscent of Gallifrey.

"I've had to repurpose it. Big ship and all, but even I run out of space."

Susan hesitates to follow him in. He mutters about the state of things, then about turning an injured stranger into a hallucination.

She turns cold. He thinks he's imagined her. But then, maybe he always did. It causes a tightness in her chest and a sickness in her throat.

"I, uh, kept the pictures." He caresses one frame and wrings his fingers. "You always loved books, right? Why else would you go to that silly school?"

She glances to the shelves and can't make out a single title. They come from all over the cosmos, looks like, and the Tardis doesn't translate any. "Are these souvenirs?" she asks.

"Aren't all books? Souvenirs of something, that is. Memories, places, people, things that never happened and things that always will…"

There's two chairs in the room, both near a desk full of pictures. Mostly pictures of her during her youth. There are pictures of her parents too, but they're separated from hers and kept in the shadows of shelves and trinkets. She looks like a scrawny child in those pictures.

The Doctor stares at them a long while before sinking into a seat. He puts his head in his hands and shakes.

She approaches him with a fear that nibbles on her ears. "It's all fine," she says. It's a lie, but it's all she can think to say. "Haven't you been through worse?"

He looks at her with wet eyes and shakes his head. She learns from that look that she's missed something. He's younger than the last generation she's seen, yet there's a haunting there that doesn't belong with his youthful face.

"I miss you," he says between tight lips. "But it's a good thing I left you behind. You can only see so much of everything before you run into something terrible. And I worry…"

She takes the seat beside him and scooches her chair closer. "Aren't terrible things all temporary, though? You told me that, once."

"Told you? Ha. You'd say that. I wanted to tell you. I don't know if I did. I tell it to myself all the time. But I've found I'm a terrific liar."

She wonders what's happened to his torn jacket. And he should have healed those cuts and bruises by now.

"You look the same," he says. "But you don't. You could pass for your daughter, you know."

"Silly, I don't have a daughter. Not that you would know, anyway."

His lips turn up in a humorless smile. "Yes, that's how you've always talked about her. Well. Not with those words, but with that voice."

She pulls back. "Grandfather, what are you saying?"

"Oh, don't take on her voice now. I won't stand for my madness developing an attitude like that."

"Grandfather." She forces a deep breath. "Do I look like Mother?"

He stands. "I'm missing something. Something important." Then he buckles and groans.

Susan helps him back into the seat. "Forget about me," she says. "You need to heal and rest."

He looks up at her, sweat beading on his forehead. She glimpses teeth in his brief smile before his sticks a finger in his mouth like he's about to chew on it. "I think I'll accept your company, anyway. Dying with someone is better than living alone. Though I'm not dying. It feels like I am…"

That reminds her of the windswept plains and his shadow's grimace at her words. It reminds of her the throbbing glow in her veins and the sickening pulse that made her skin feel near to bursting.

"You're regenerating," he says. "Or is it me?"

"… I am."

"Why are you doing that? It's a dreadful process."

She takes his hand and it shakes. He feels strong and healthy and she knows from the powers in his grip despite the tremors that he'll be better with sleep. "Is it?" she asks. "I've never done it before."

"Oh, yes. It hurts and hurts and when you wake up, you're someone else. It's exciting, you know. You wake up and you get to rediscover yourself all over again."

"That part doesn't sound so bad."

"No, that part's wonderful. I can't wait to do it again."

"So, do you hate it or love it?"

He grins and his eyes pop open wide. "Both! It makes me feel alive. Ha! Even though I died, you see."

She chokes on something and a sob escapes her. "I don't want to be alone."

"But you're not alone!"

"No, I don't want to—! Never mind." She releases him. "You're somewhere else, anyway. When aren't you? You prefer to fly away to the farthest reaches of the galaxies rather than handle the growing up of your last relative."

"Relative? I have no relatives left besides Susan. And she's happier with that man on Earth."

"She preferred to see the stars, Grandfather! David was very good and wonderful, but Susan never got the taste of stardust out of her mouth! She never forgot the smell of deep flowers on the Water Planet and she never lost that echo of reeling birds! She still needed the crystal sand and the candy rivers!"

"I left her for a reason. Didn't I? Yes, she only stayed with me out of pity. I couldn't convince her. I stole her from her home and I forced her into my lonely path. The Earth was the best I could do, but she deserved so much more. I wanted to give her a castle. Yes. With a conservatory two levels high and filled to bursting with Earthian roses."

She swallows that sting of betrayal when she catches the longing in his voice. "Earthian roses?"

"Arkytoir," he whispers like he forgot something. "Is that what you are? A ghost to haunt me? An echo of my mistake. But I couldn't bear to leave her. I couldn't. And because I couldn't look beyond my selfish desires, I condemned her to a life of loneliness and cultural confusion."

"You didn't."

"I did!" He leaves his seat and paces without a look her way. He glances at the floor, at the decorations, the walls, the drapes, the floor again, always back to the floor. He runs a hand through his hair and fidgets like he's trapped here. "I did. Oh, Susan. Susan, Susan. If only…"

Her eyes grow wet and tears drop down her cheek. Words fail her. Her skin pulses and energy threatens to consume her.

"She misses you," she says eventually. "And she wishes you could see that."

"Does she now? Ha! Now. Will she? Did she? Perhaps… I can still find her. No, no, no… I can't bother her."

She can't convince him. In the churning of his thoughts, she sees only haze and unreason. "How about we think of something else," she says. "Like sunsets on Gallifrey staining the desert a brilliant orange."

He slows, both in mind and body. It lasts an instant before he's back to fretting. He makes plans, revisits recent events, and reviews their position in space. No train of thought lasts long before he switches to something else.

Susan closes her eyes and focuses. She slows his track on how he could have left by now and found a station for parts. She brings him back to the night they ran away. She shows him all the pieces left about the floor they considered before hopping in a Tardis and taking off.

"Oh, that's new."

Susan startles back to the present. He's right in front of her, looking at her, and calmer now with eyes so wide they look near to popping. He's settled enough to grow suspicious, but not enough to become reasonable.

She keeps her hold, but the strain of it pushes her closer to bursting. She takes his head in her hands despite the height gap and pushes. She's put people to sleep before, but they were enemies. Competitors at school, spies at the Academy, Daleks on a fleet master…

She's betrayed him. He pushes back, but it's like a child's protests in the late hours of the night.

Her eyes lock with his. His twitch and flutter closed before snapping open again. He's trying to understand how and when and why this is. Why does she talk to him? Why does she disappear each time? She has to be evil in some way, a sick joke and cruel method to get to him. He has enemies enough that would do it. But why does she never try to kill or hurt him?

Something snaps and his control vanishes. He tumbles at her and she can't catch him in time. They both topple. Susan recovers and finds him still asleep.

Susan eyes her old bed. It's not quite his size, but it's better than the floor.

Her body shakes. She can't move straight. It takes all her strength to keep him asleep whilst she drags and hauls him atop the scarlet and gold bedding. She lays another blanket on top and rests at his side.

She stays with him until his breath evens and the rise and fall of his chest matches with the rhythm of the Tardis' whirring. She imagines resting, herself. Maybe when he wakes, they could leave together.

It takes a shallow scan to find that a terrible idea. Even under the persona, this one is more temperamental than the rest. His distrust and disgust at Gallifrey stains his dreams bitter. She can't see him taking her even close to Gallifrey if he can avoid it.

No, this is the wrong side of him, anyway. She needs to find one after it's all settled. However long that takes, she has to be patient.

She gives his worn and peaceful face one last look before leaving him with an enchanted Earthen rose from one of the vases.

She doesn't miss the tartan cloth draped across a chair, or the pieces of a robot scattered to the corners of the room.


	5. Chapter 5

She's almost forgotten the pain in her head. She peels off the bandage, but she still can't remember everything that happened between the explosion and arriving on Earth. She follows another trail and this one takes her to a black-clad man that stumbles through an ignorant crowd.

She follows him to the dock, where he stares out over the ocean like he's seeing it for the first time. He stares with a brand-new face that still sings with regenerative energy.

She doesn't approach him this time. Not at first. He looks shaken. He glances about him with such fear that she half expects him to jump straight out of his skin whenever someone brushes against him. But he's in London, among a population from the 2000 era, and he looks suited to it. So why does he act like his life hangs on by a thread? Why, despite the young features of his face and hands, does he look older than any of the others she's seen?

He catches her eyes through the crowd and she startles at his intensity. He runs for her, takes her hand, and asks, "Susan?"

She can't name the dreadful feeling in her stomach. She can't say why she recoils at that confused expression. She's seen him angry. She's seen him more frightened. But something about this desperation—it fills her with such terror that she can only stare and scramble for a lie.

He releases her hand—his grip leaves it red at the edges—and apologies with a duck of his head. He's too tense to be embarrassed.

"Sir," she blurts. It hurts not to call him, "Grandfather." "There's a lovely park around the corner. Perhaps some clear air will do you good?"

"Air does nothing." Despite his self-perceived mistake, he won't leave her. And he keeps glancing at her. "Air is—"

He glances again and she sees the redness of his face. Realization dawns as a lead weight on her shoulders. The thing she can't remember. The haze that fogs her mind whenever she tries to think of what she stepped out of.

He remembers it. And whatever she escaped from, he didn't.

"Please," she said. "You look like someone that needs quiet sun and birdsong. Shade under the warm sun and the reminder that hope is still—"

He chokes and her heart stops at the sound of it. He fights to keep his composure, but it fractures.

"Please," she says.

He looks at her, all red. She silently begs for him to listen. To accept. Her heart aches to help him and she can't bear the thought of losing him here. He looks so young, almost like—

He stares at her, lips tight and eyes swollen. He doesn't break. But he can't bring himself back to stable and she sees it. There's no excuse he can make to escape her. He knows it.

She wants to hold him tight and promise him the sun would set and then rise again, but she can see it will do nothing. He hates her right now. For what, she can make a guess.

"I don't know what you're going through," she says, "but I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry."

He forces a breath and it catches in his throat. How awkward, to stand close enough to see his eyes yet she can't touch him. He's wound like a rabbit staring down its predator.

"It's nothing," he says. "It's all in my head."

"Not anymore, it's not. Tears take it out of your head, don't you realize?"

"I'm not crying. It's—it's nothing. Go on. You have something to get to, don't you?"

"It'll wait."

"This one won't." He gestures, but it looks pathetic. "I don't—you're a dangerous woman, I can tell. You make people want to tell you things."

She forces a laugh. "Not everyone, I promise!"

"I can't! Just go!"

He sounds angry. Those defenses built so tall and strong and forever crumbled away. She needs a second of eternity to break them.

"I need new clothes," she says. "I hate to say how selfish I am, but perhaps you'll help me find something better?"

He pauses. The hesitation is palpable and the turmoil is visible in his twitching eye. The red fades and his breath evens out. "Clothes?" he repeats.

She nods and makes herself sheepish. He's dumbfounded. Eventually he clears his throat, adjusts himself, and gives a quick nod. "What are you looking for?"

She smiles despite the fragility of this calm. She'll enjoy it while she can. "Something smart and dignified, I think. Like a doctor might wear."

"Doctors are rubbish. Let's go find something for a librarian. Librarians are smart, aren't they? They don't hurt anybody. … Normally."

She breathes and forces a smile. Then looks for the first shop she can find.

"What's that?" he asks as an obvious means of distraction.

"What's what?"

"The thing you just put in your pocket."

She feels at the shape of it on her hip. "Oh, yes. Just… an emergency caller for myself. I ring it if something bad happens."

A spark of hope lit his thoughts before a wave of anger and regret smothered it again.

"Where's your vehicle?" she asks, despite the sagging reminder that he couldn't take her.

"… Around."

Best not to have him thinking about any of that, she reminds herself. Earth things. Happy things. Stupid things. "You look like you need some clothes, too. That gear won't fly about this place."

"Won't it?" He looks down and Susan berates herself again. She sees too much of his ninth incarnation in it. But he doesn't split at the seams. In fact, no emotion at all leaks from him. She takes a peek and finds him… empty. He's numbing.

That's… better. Numbness is a stage in healing. Even if it makes him dangerous and puts him at more risk of doing something stupid.

Her arm stings and she stifles a hiss. If he noticed, he doesn't show it. He's not really interested in clothes, but she's hoping that the act of it will sneak other thoughts in his crowded brain. That should force out some of the badness.

He pulls her into the first clothes shop they find and it's full of t-shirts and jackets. Some jackets are full of pockets and buttons, others hang slack with emblems. Some are red-trimmed, and others lined.

"Maybe not this one," he says and moves to leave. Susan grabs his arm and he rips free of her.

She expects a reprimand or for him to leave. He does neither. She approaches a long-sleeved black shirt with no embellishment or logo except a tag on the inside. "It looks like you," she says.

"I look like a t-shirt?"

She touches its sleeve and it stings.

No, her fingers hurt. They glow an angry gold and panic seizes her chest. She wrestles her breathing under control and with it, the glow fades. She's running out of time.

She glances to the Doctor and finds him distracted with some ad about a giveaway the next week. She hadn't seen him in the same clothes between any of his incarnations. Would she do the same thing and change her style with her new self?

Her breath hitches. She should have asked the previous one about it. She didn't get the same classes on regeneration that everyone else did. How would she know what to do?

"Take this one," she says to redirect herself. "It suits you better than those ratty old clothes."

He looks between it and her, brows knit. It takes all he has just to process what she said and why she's holding out a plain shirt for him. It's modern, thin, and dark as night. But it feels soft and will breathe better when he runs than that ruined vest and dress shirt.

He takes it from her with the same confusion. No, not confusion at her. It isn't about the shirt either. He can't reconcile what's happening with what's happened. She can't see past now, though. His memories before the dock blur when she reaches for them and it feels like an invisible barrier between her and his past. She can't even see who he was before his ninth incarnation. … Because he's blocking it. Not from her, but from himself.

But he's moving. He's moving past it. It'll take ages if not centuries to come to terms with it. It might not happen at all. But she's nudging him away for now.

They purchase the shirt with money he has (from the Tardis, no doubt) and leave. She asks him about his day. He doesn't respond.

A resounding in her head like cloister bells and something cracks. She splits.

"Are you alright?"

Sound reverberates about her. Panic burns her shoulders and she runs.

He'll catch up. He'll see her change, if he hasn't noticed the glow already. She's ruined it. She's broken the timeline. She's broken him.

But this is after the war, so it's okay. She can still borrow him and she can still borrow his Tardis. After she changes, she'll go find him and he'll take her away. But what he came from is fresher than she thought possible. He's not the same man that entered the war. And he might never be such again.

She makes it to a dark alley's corner before it hurts too much to move. She wants to rest and sit, but her limbs lock up. Terror floods her and it makes her sick. But she can't vomit because she's freezing all together like someone's injected her with a paralytic.

And then it passes. How long has she traveled already? If she pushes it too long, she might not survive the process. But she can't do it near him. He can't see the change.

She curls up against the dark brick and watched silhouettes pass. Here away from people, she finds the slightest comfort. He runs past her hiding place.

Maybe it wouldn't be so noisy. Maybe she could keep it contained. Not everyone had to explode like her classmates. They put it off too long, they always said. They avoided it.

And here she sits like a child, terrified of the medics and wanting to go back home. She's better than this.

Susan stands and reaches into her pocket. Another try it is.


	6. Chapter 6

She wanders an exhibit's balcony and takes in all the lovely flowers fostered by the museum. For a while she can pretend she's reverted to her old state of pretending at human young adulthood. It calms the building energy inside her.

"Ah, you like these ones, too."

She looks up and finds the garish coat of a madman. Once again, the calculations prove correct. The first gnaw of ominous worry begins at her insides. But she can't bring herself to think past the rush of meeting a new face. This one is square, strong, and perhaps arrogant. But then, he's always arrogant.

It's the freshness of his face that gnaws at her. He can't be more than some decades into this one.

He continues, "The colors are rich, the form elegant, and I daresay, it's almost as impressive as I am."

She smiles at him and he takes it as awe. He's not entirely wrong. "You like flowers," she says.

"Why wouldn't I? They're full of color and beauty, even in smell. Unlike most organisms, they like to make themselves pleasant in every way."

"I know people that like to make a show of themselves wherever they go." She watches him for a sign of recognition. But he doesn't look at her.

"You'll find me better than the rest. Is it a special occasion for you?"

"Yes and no."

"Well, which is it?"

"Both. What about you? Where've you been off to?"

"Oh, out and about. Crowned myself king of a whole pond the other day. The ducks gave a beautiful eulogy."

"And what did these ducks say?"

His smile flickered and he leaned away. "That I was the greatest to ever step foot in their pond."

"And by greatest…"

"I was the largest."

"How big was this pond?"

"Not that big, honestly." He sounds awkward, but he doesn't look uncomfortable. She wants to think that reassuring, but it only feels… off.

"You've gone and changed again," she says. "Not for the worse, it seems… but not for the better, either. Why won't you look at me?"

"Look at you? I've looked at you plenty."

"No, really. You know me."

"Do I?"

"Who else knows about your regenerations?"

"Too many. My previous selves weren't exactly careful with keeping such information sensitive."

"… You're halfway through your regenerations."

"Am I?"

She grabs his face and he shoves back hard enough to lose her balance. He finally looks her on, mouth agape. He's mortified.

Her cheeks sting, but she recovers herself. "As I've said, you've changed."

"You startled me."

"Don't go apologizing, it's not worth it. I'll be forced back again before long." Her whole face hurts, and she wonders if the pain moved. The lump in her throat says otherwise. "I just thought that—maybe—before I go, I could…"

His breath hitches. He steps toward her, hesitant. "You're fake. You changed, yet you look the same. How?"

She wonders if after all this time if she really is a figment of his imagination. "I can't remember."

"That scab." He reaches for her and she flinches back. "I've seen it before. When?"

"I couldn't tell you how many years it's, or even which regeneration."

"I suppose that's typical. If I don't know, no one else will." He looks about him, like there's something to be found in the quiet murmurings of this museum. "How frustrating. I can't imagine by this point if you're friend or enemy."

His quiet confusion worries her. She can't ignore that constant glint in his eye, like he's about to wrangle something. He claims that she could be an ally, but she hears only distrust in his roiling thoughts. Restrained anger and hate. Bitterness that twists in on itself so tight, his insides feel like a bow pulled taut.

"You miss her, don't you?" Susan asks at length.

"Miss who?"

"Mother. Father. And Grandmother. You never told me their stories because it hurts too much. Right?"

He's back to avoiding her gaze, like an awkward child. He says nothing and it doesn't match his eager glances to everything but her. He hides a thousand words unsaid. "The sun will fall soon."

"And what does that have to do with it?"

"It means I have to go."

"Why?"

"Because I have much more important matters to attend to than getting lectured by my hallucinations. Before I make myself rid of you, ghost, how about you promise to never come back?"

"I can't do that."

"Just as well. I suppose you borrow my determination."

She strides up to him and takes his hand. She readies for his reaction this time and blocks his instinctive strike. He doesn't resist her past that. "I've trained on Gallifrey for a century and fought the Daleks the whole time," she says. "I've gathered intelligence you've never thought possible and I've made them beg for mercy. If that's something you thought I'd say, then prove it."

"Daleks have no concept of mercy." He yanks her arm free of her pocket and rips away from her. His expression sets into hard lines. She fights a thrill of fear.

"Please don't be real," he says as he fingers the device.

"Why not?"

"You complicate things."

"I'm inconvenient?"

"Yes. Most people are, though. Why else would I swoop in to save you all?"

"You don't have to protect me anymore."

"I have to protect everybody, including myself. It's not an insult, just a fact."

Susan stares at him. She can't find an ounce of guile on him. He's lost his sense of humor. If he's joking, she doesn't see it.

The door busts open and Susan startles away. The Doctor moves to shield her with himself. "Stay back!" he shouts. "I can't have rude people talking to me while I educate my demons!"

Sontarans march in and train in on the Doctor. They raise their guns.

"Wait!" he says. "I have an innocent here! You can't take me with her watching!"

The leader Sontaran stepped forward. "You've violated the laws of equidistant versioning!"

"Go," the Doctor hisses. "You'll only make this one more complicated."

"Complicated? What did I just say about my training?"

"I trust you more than anyone, my dear, and I hope you take that for the unmeasurable compliment that it is. But your presence will only confuse these small-minded soldiers. I'll have a much easier time getting out if you're not here."

"Did you hire an entire Sontaran army just to chase me away? Or to prove if I'm real or not?"

"Innocent!" shouts the leader. "Step away from the criminal or you will be summarily executed!"

"Even I didn't have time to call them," he says. "We'll take up this argument later. Just go!"

She looks between them and nods. She runs out the way she came.

But there's many entrances to this building. And she needs her panic button back from her grandfather.

Susan runs. Her body protests and it stretches her thin.

She keeps on the front of her feet and makes it back around the building in seconds. She takes a turn and someone shouts in appreciation. She may as well be running from the Nightmare Child itself with that pounding rush in her veins and the surge of purpose down her back.

Less than a minute later, she leaps onto the back of the rear Sontaran—they're all distracted with subduing the Doctor—and knocks it to the floor.

She knocks out another before someone shoves a rifle in her face.

"Stop!" yells the leader. "Nothing you do will prevent this creature's fate!"

She looks up. The remaining three Sontarans hold the Doctor to his knees. He looks troubled, more about her than those forcing him down.

Typical Grandfather. He must be so accustomed to captivity by now.

"The law must be upheld!" says the leader. "If you interfere further, you'll share in his fate!"

"What fate?" Susan asks.

"A week on an outer penal colony!"

She's seen a lot more since she left Grandfather all those years ago, but her experience with Sontarans remained limited. A week could mean anything.

"Let me talk to him," she says.

"And risk you taking him with you?"

"I can't go anywhere. Scan me."

They look at each other, confused. One pulls out a device and as they do, she checks the leader's head. They don't have much planned. This is a minor scuffle compared to what the leader would like addressed. Grandfather's done a lot more than this, but they can't convict him of anything serious yet.

"Keep it short!" says the leader. "One minute!"

Susan takes it and leaves the two she's knocked out. She strides to Grandfather and kneels beside him. "I'll find you again," she says.

"I'd expect nothing less." He betrays a flicker of satisfaction before patting her cheek and waving. "Do your worst, demon.

Susan takes her fob back from him. Time warps. The exhibit disappears and she loses herself to the currents of spacetime.

When she comes to in a dark and abandoned alley, she can only judge her location by distant animal barks and arguing people.

She forces herself to her knees and cries. It tears through her chest, this sudden and vast emotion. It feels like a creature ripping its way free of her, taking with it all the feeling and courage she had. She misses the thrill of close encounters with Daleks next to this.


	7. Chapter 7

She picks at the scab left from her wound. She remembers pulling debris from it and stepping out of a crashed vessel. She remembers looking for someone after that. She still can't put her finger on the cause of the crash.

Here, decades—or perhaps centuries?—before the cluster she found, she has to find signals to trace for the rest of this time period. He's been everywhere and everywhen. Out of the entire cosmos, he's been to Britain more than anywhere else. And he's been here so often, she can expect to find a version of him somewhere.

If only she didn't get stuck in some small country village. Possibly one from before the industrial age. The morning light and empty streets do little to narrow down the timeframe.

But if she can get another ride in the Tardis, she can get closer again to her home. It starts to feel hopeless as she gets yanked further back every time she finds progress.

She pauses. What did she find that made it so critical that she get back home?

"Oh, hello!"

She startles. A kilt-wearing man looked at her with a friendly smile and full, dark hair that matches his eyes. He looks familiar. "Yes?" she asks.

"You look lost," he says. That accent… she knows it from earth, but which part of earth? Close to London, surely. She heard it at school sometimes. "As it so happens, we specialize in getting lost people home."

"That can't be right. The person I'm looking for can't even get himself home."

"Jamie, what are you doing over there? That child's getting away!"

"One second, Doctor!"

"I'll chase it myself! You won't get far, villain!"

"Very sorry," the man says. "Looks like I have to go. There's a girl out there with something very valuable of ours. Unless you want to come with us?"

She doesn't think before she takes his hand and runs.

It floods her with memories of metal walls, forest paths, and the rush of adrenaline that blocks out the worries of yesterday. He surprises her with his speed—she makes an effort to keep up.

They catch up with a short man in dark hair and dark clothes. Susan stumbles and Jamie catches her. They continue on.

That short man looks like Grandfather did when they parted on Earth. This has to be his second generation.

She recovers herself and it takes seconds to find the target.

The girl shrieks when they corner her and whirls to face them. She's twitchy and looking for an escape.

"I'm sorry to bother you," Susan says. "Is it true you took something of ours?"

The girl locks on her, eyes wide and terrified. Her dress is rough and simple. They've landed before the industrial age.

"I'm sorry," the girl squeaks. "I just wanted to take something home for Mummy."

"I can give you money enough to pay for two of those, child." The Doctor pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his forehead. "Once I just… recover my breath. Yes. You need what, medicine?"

The girl looks at the ground and sways in place.

The Doctor hums in thought. "Ah, not just any kind of medicine. A remedy for a sickness of the mind."

The girl nods.

"How about this then…" Grandfather looks between Susan and Jamie like they have something for him.

"What do you need?" Jamie asks.

The Doctor taps his chin. "I need something Travestinian. Chocolate? Lights? What do you think?"

"I think we don't have any of those," Jamie says.

They go back and forth and Susan wishes she could produce something on the spot to calm the girl.

"How's this?" Susan kneels to her level. "You might call me a witch, but I have this sort of magic."

"Will you kill me?"

"Oh, no, nothing so terrible. I hope it's even wonderful. What's the thing your mother wants to see most?"

"I don't know."

"Doesn't she talk about anything? Like seeing the northern lights or sailing among stars?"

The girl sucks on a finger and looks between them with confused eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"Isn't there something your mother wishes for more than anything?"

The girl's eyes light up with realization. "Like an endless pot of stew?"

"I think we can manage that." Susan looks to the Doctor. "Can't we?"

He frowns so deeply she thinks he'll fix his face like that. Or maybe it's already fixed like that. "Can't she think of something more exciting?"

"What would you say is more exciting than endless food?" Susan asks.

"Gallifrey's libraries are more exciting than food, my winterbloom."

The world stops. Her heart skips a beat. Grandfather talks to Jamie, but Susan can only hear that last word echo in her heart, long lost to time. She heard him use that maybe once or twice when it he talked about her mother.

Jamie leaves with the girl. Susan missed what they settled on.

Grandfather turns to her with that face so much like his old one and says, "Now tell me what you're doing here, my child. One such as yourself shouldn't find me from where you left to. And how you've grown!"

She can't bring the words to her mouth. They're halted at her throat like something frozen. "You're… pleased to see me?"

"How could I not be?" His voice breaks.

Something claws in her chest with the force of a thousand beasts. She's so close to it, yet so far for the illusion that hangs as fragile as a dead flower between them. The wrong word and she knows he'll shut down like he always.

"Jamie saw you," he mutters. "It's real. But how can it be?"

He doubts. And once he doubts, he's very close to the rational answer and the end of this charade.

She can't bring herself to stop him. Desperate as she is, she doesn't dare break him. She's seen what happens later. She can't tip that balance.

"Something terrible happens," she says. "Something big and dreadful and forever. But all bad things end eventually, right?"

He looks at her and puts a finger in his mouth. She hurts to see him like this. She thought that finding the part of him closer to when he left her would make it easier, but it only sinks deep into her chest and stabs at her heart.

"Doctor." Jamie returns and dusts of his hands. "Consider it done. One little girl's been returned to her mother, safe and sound and dressed nice. She's also got one of those nutrition things to make drinks like food."

Susan blinks away the tears and takes Grandfather in a hug. "You help the universe," she says. "You were always made to fix everyone. It's okay that you couldn't fix us, too."

"What's the point of having you if I can't make your world as wonderful as anyone else's?"

"Because your job is to equip your children with the power to make things as much better as you do."

"You can't stay." He says it like he's realized something terrible. "This is one of those primordial glitches, isn't it?"

"No. But I promise I'll find you in the future and leave you with a way to find me back. It may not happen for many, many years. And you may see nasty things before then. But I will give you a way to find me."

He pulls her back and looks her up and down. "You've gotten quite strong, it seems."

"Quite." She forces a smile through the tears. "But don't worry. You'll still beat me at checkers."

"How very reassuring."

Jamie steps in. "You know her, Doctor?"

"More than that, she knows me!"

Jamie nods to himself and makes a show of understanding. "Then perhaps you'll introduce us?"

"No!" Grandfather pulls her away and puts himself between her and Jamie. "The last thing I want is you stealing away my granddaughter! Your job is to beat cybermen, dear boy, and you'll not forget it! I don't carry you along to fool around with beautiful women!"

"I never said anything about stealing anybody! I can beat cybermen and make friends while I'm at it, can't I?"

"Susan." Grandfather turns to her. "What's happened to you?"

Her throat closes. "Nothing I can tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because it'll affect your timeline."

"Says who?"

"Says you."

He glares at her, brow knit, and mouth twisted in a frown. "When?"

"Far in your the future."

"Oh, goodness me." He puts a hand on his heart and settles himself. "You've grown indeed."

She catches it then, the first hint of suspicion. He couldn't believe her for long. She can't say why—she didn't die or anything. Why can't he accept that she's real and living and so much more experienced than she used to be?

Her shoulder pops out and she buckles over in pain.

Grandfather and Jamie ask something in concern, but she's already pressed the button. She jumps.


	8. Chapter 8

She forces the shoulder back in place with a shout before looking about the grassy hills she's found herself in. She hauls herself to her feet. It's like the highlands she met one of him on.

So with a steadying breath, she marches toward the next signal.

On top of an old stone architecture and in time for the winter solstice, she finds him gazing at the stars. He looks impossibly old now, yet his body seems as young as a boy fresh out of the Academy.

She's so tired that she can't bring herself to disturb him at first. Her head is all but healed, but she still can't summon a clear image of what happened before she left. She wonders if talking to him will help, but she can't imagine how.

"I was starting think you'd never come."

Susan stops at the base of his stone. He looks like one of her professors from school, only decades younger. She considers joining him. "You're waiting for me, now? What for?"

"You." He looks at her despite the angle and drops from his perch. He invades her space with eyes too piercing for such a young face. "What are you? You can't be an illusion, but you can't be real. You can't be either of the women you look like."

She smothers the pain at his stubborn unrecognition. "Then maybe I'm neither. I once wanted to say I've come from the darkness itself. Or is that your job now?"

"Everything is my job."

"I used to believe that once, too."

"Have I gone mad? Or have I been mad since the beginning?"

Her instinct is to joke and say, "Of course!" But she doesn't because it's too close to the truth. "More so now, it seems."

"You haven't been to Earth lately, have you?"

"Depends on what time this is."

"Will you tell me what happened?"

"That's the tricky thing. I don't remember. But something caused me to get lost, and I think it has to do with the reason you won't tell anyone your name."

He shifts and his nose twitches in a harsh way. "The time lock? Then you're not getting back whatever it is you lost on the way."

"No, I don't think I will at this point. But that's all fine. I just need to get back home."

"Home earth or home Gallifrey?" He glares at her with the worst scrutiny.

"Both. Where's your Tardis?"

"Not here."

"I see. Then you don't want to leave? You could have gone to the Rings and back, then through all of eternity and beyond instead of waiting."

"I knew you'd appear again."

"That hasn't stopped you before."

He shifts and twitches. "And why do you think you know me so well?"

"I don't. I knew you once and that's all. I don't even see that part of you anymore. What happened to Grandfather?"

"I'm here."

"Yes, you are, but where's the original you? It can't all be gone, can it? Do you still tell stories?"

"Yes."

She strengthens her stance and fills her lungs. He looks calm, but his demeanor sets her on edge. He holds himself not like a warrior, not like a father… more like a doll hanging by a thread.

The realization dawns with a small thrill of delight. She touches his face and he didn't recoil. She wraps her arms around him. He feels so thin and so tall. His body's strong, but he smells like an old man. Like dust and aged cloth.

"What are you?" he asks.

"I already told you. And seeing as you won't tell me what you are now, it seems we should make our own evaluations. You're eight regenerations older than when we left, and you've gotten so lost that you can't remember what names you left back home. You're captive to the cosmos now in all its wonders and terrors."

"Twelve regenerations older."

Her heart stops. She pulls back to look at him. "Thirteen? You can't be older than four-thousand!"

"Two-thousand."

"Surely you haven't looked in a mirror recently. I'll believe four."

"Maybe three." He cracks a small smile and looks like a boy for it. He's right—the youthful features, though not suiting to his age, are not as out of place as she thought.

"Three-thousand to thirteen generations," she breathes. She remembers every face she's met. "Hundreds of years to a life… like a boy that dies each time. That's why I always met you early in your lives… Oh, why do you always ask for trouble?"

He smiles and it doesn't reach his eyes. "Because it's what I do. And you've got it wrong, I'm Eleven."

"None of that's right. Why don't the wounded hide from you by now? Why do they do the same thing as me and seek you out?"

"Well, why did _you_ seek me out?"

She hugs him again, the truth a painful black box that weighs as heavy as a boulder in her stomach. "Not this one. You're still missing something. You don't have the memory that unlocks what I need to say. But it happened generations ago… what's happened?"

"I have to wait?"

"Yes. And you never guessed."

"Guessed what?"

"Who I am."

He tugs to get away, but she holds firm. He sighs into her neck and it feels wet. He sniffles. "I don't have to guess. You're my worst regret."

"Am not."

"You may not be my biggest, but you are my worst. And I promise you here that if this turns out to be some cruel trick then I will make you regret ever being born. I will find everything you love and burn it for the rest of eternity." His tone turns harsh and tears choke his voice. "I will never forgive you and you'll not hide from me."

She swallows her fear and breathes to steady herself. "Don't worry. You'll never find someone but me to blame for this."

"Once a Zygon steals the shape of another, it becomes nigh impossible to tell them apart. They can imitate the deepest connections and most intimate of relationships."

"What are you saying?"

"There are others out there besides the Zygons, sometimes harder to differentiate, sometimes easier. The Advocate learned the hard way that it is a mistake to try this on me. I have left plenty of examples for you to learn what happens when you mock me through my dearest friends. My _lost friends._ And you know what I think?"

Her blood chills and she forces herself back to look at him. He doesn't let her go and that smile of his is stale and terrible. "What?" she asks. She can't search him fast enough and it makes her hasty and reckless. She can't hold enough pieces together to see his plan.

"You've done a fine job. But there's enough holes for the hidden picture to show through. The real Susan wouldn't be so cryptic, for one."

"I'm not—"

"Don't try to fool me." His fingers clench her arms so tight it hurts. "If you haven't done your homework, then there's no one left here to save you."

Fear blooms in her stomach as a dreadful weight. His grip tightens.

She presses a button she forgot she held and she runs.

It rips her from him in a second. It reminds her of jumping points between the previous incarnation and it triggers locked memories.


	9. Chapter 9

She lands. It's warm and bright. She stutters and loses pieces. She's too far from the target and it shatters her recollection. The threads holding her body together fray and she fights to see straight.

Susan drops and swears because she was so close! She's gotten so close to the Tardis, yet never held a hope of using one! She swears and cries because she has work to do. She misses her grandfather and she misses him holding her without fear or anger. She tells herself it's just a reaction to the jump. It stresses the body and encourages emotional responses. She's in control of herself—or she will be in moments.

She convulses in pain and freezes again. For a long, terrible moment, she thinks regeneration has taken her. She vomits and it doesn't make her feel better.

She summons her strength again and fights the wave of explosive energy. It passes.

Once she's cried for too long and her body calms, she recovers her breath and stands. The grass is soft and lush. The hills of this town area shine with the setting sun and she knows she's close.

Her hems feel wet against her knees and her head swims with the change, but she marches on. The device in her hand vibrates and rolls to indicate direction. She only has to follow it and maybe wait. It's too small to move her without hiccup, but she couldn't fit anything bigger in her pocket when she left High Command.

It takes her to a children's playground. With the cooling air of evening, the playground is filled with boys and girls decompressing from a day of school and whatnot. Wind fusses with their loose clothes and the golden sun glares out from behind the houses.

She doesn't see him. She's not missed him yet so she settles in to wait like she's done so many times. The sun sinks further and turns a brilliant orange. The sky stains red and she imagines herself back home. The freedom of Earth feels impossible until she sees that candy sky and breathes the cooling air. Flowers and restaurants make the air smell of summer freedom.

"Beg your pardon."

She jumps at his voice. The sky's almost purple now. Did she fall asleep?

He stares at her, eyes wide and apologetic. He's all pastel hues and soft off-whites. "I noticed a strange signal coming this way. Did you call for help?"

She grips her anchor tighter. "Yes. I'm looking for someone."

"What kind of someone? Perhaps I can point you in the right direction."

A boy waits across the street, dressed in poor, yellow and olive clothing. She knows his face.

"Hello?" The Doctor regards her with curious scrutiny. "You seem out of sorts. Perhaps you need to lie down?"

She forgets her resolve when she hears that voice that sounds so like her son. "I don't need to sleep. Just work."

"From which world? Will you at least tell me your origin?"

"You don't know?"

"You're not Gallifreyan."

Maybe he's given up by now. Maybe he assumes it a coincidence. Maybe he's trained himself to forget. He's never put it together and no matter how many visits she makes, it doesn't make him believe it.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She gathers her stained skirts. She can't get what she needs from this one, anyway. She wonders why she keeps trying. "If you'll excuse me."

"Wait!"

Pressure builds in her chest. The air turns heavy and she fights to stay straight.

"Are you okay?" the boy companion asks.

She stops. That voice rings familiar and she takes in his young features. He's a child. He's small and weak and naïve. He tries to look confident, but he's riddled with worry. Anxiety?

Susan turns to the Doctor, who's watching her. He's suspicious. Worried, maybe.

She fights with herself. The Doctor looks in some ways the least like Grandfather right now. He's too young and not old enough and yet he still can't connect the dots.

"Something's wrong," says the child. "You're both acting weird."

The Doctor shoves his hands in his pockets and makes a show of nonchalance. "I always act weird. But this is new. I thought you were an illusion."

"I'm not." If it wasn't for her other trips, she'd allow a flutter of hope.

"It's always a new venue." He circles about her like a predator. "Always a new me. You're playing a long game, aren't you?"

Maybe she liked to think her Grandfather a monster from the stories he read instead of the guardian because that made him safer. Maybe that was how he survived so long.

"I'm playing the game I need," she says. "And it's a lot longer than you have the time for."

"What's longer than five generations of Time Lord life?"

If the last version she met was thirteen, then she'd never find what she needed. The realization hit her like a boulder. "Five generations for a normal Time Lord. You're less than half the life of the last one, meaning you must be six."

"Five."

"That's impossible."

"It can't be because that's how it is."

"Then you were right when you told me twelve regenerations. What is wrong with your process? Don't answer that, I think I know."

He looks thoroughly confused now and his calculating persona's gone. He stops and regards her with wretched hesitation. He can't know why she's gone cold and dark. Why she suddenly hates herself with such passion that it bleeds her heart and stabs her toes. Her search is futile. Her chance is gone. She's seeing every version of him for nothing. She may as well wander a confession dial.

"I should go," is all she thinks to say. She's tortured him too long and he her. She realizes the childishness of her interference. The naivety of her search for closure. What goodness she claimed was not hers to take.

"You're regenerating," he says.

She turns cold. Her stomach churns and the world turns. It goes dark. Fingers turn numb, then the toes.

"Adric! With me!"

Something holds her up. Hands? Arms? Ground? She tries to move but finds no motor control.

"Who is she, Doctor?"

Pain builds and builds until she explodes. Her head burns and her body surges. Space ignites. Her skin blossoms in searing agony.

Her instructor always warned her this would happen—she gave up too quick to the rush of battle and victory. Some said it hurt, others said it was a refreshing change.

"I honestly don't know anymore."

Every part of her screams in silence and vibrates and twists. She screams with it.

And then, finally and too soon, it ends. Fire gives way to cool calm and she relaxes. Skin is clammy, cold, and strange.

"She's regenerated. Like you do."

"Yes, like I do."

Strange voices. Strange place. Limbs feel weird. Head feels weirder.

"She needs to recover. How long did you hold off this regeneration, my dear?"

The Doctor. Grandfather. The Oncoming Storm. Who is he? Who really? Why didn't he ever tell her his name?

They lift her. Susan pushes a button and disappears.


	10. Chapter 10

She savors the peace of nonexistence for a split second before appearing again. They're mapped out. She mapped them. The Time Lords made a point of keeping her away from his information, but she learned to break into their systems. And now she wishes she spent that time on training instead. She wishes she didn't devise her hell.

She puts her finger on the device again but can't bring herself to push it. It wouldn't be hell if she can leave. She's enslaved to her own impulse and she gives up with a curse. She's here. He's here. She'll find him because she can. She'll indulge in this reckless, dangerous, damaging ride because it was too easy to say yes and too hard to say no.

… But what _are _heaven and hell? It sounds like leftover habits from Earth. Why did she go there in the first place?

But never mind that. She's in a big room with fancy tapestries and the ceiling's so far up it has to span whole stories.

She wanders to a balcony and finds him lounging on the rail. He overlooks a valley stained pink by an alien sun.

"You always come," he says without looking at her. "You find the darkest, ugliest moments, and you come."

He still won't look at her. The thought of him dangling above that drop leaves a pit in her stomach despite the numbing pain of her regenerating body. "I only took the coordinates recorded in the master database."

"Oh, yes. Because High Command would just jot down at random these times after, before, or during my lowest."

She takes in the fine silk and the masterful clothes hanging in the wardrobe and the shimmer of the floor. He wears a simple noble's ensemble for now, but it doesn't mix well with his Earthlike, messy hair.

"Your last incarnation seemed fine."

"You mean right after the War?"

"No, the one with the boy. Adric."

He runs a hand down his face. "I was so busy figuring out where you'd gone… He died after that."

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."

"You're angry," she says. "That's okay. I am too. I'm mad at you and the rest of Gallifrey. I'm mad at Mother for disappearing. I'm mad at Father for going away. I'm mad that I never met either." She says it, but it doesn't feel right. Is that how she talked before? Is it new?

He stays quiet. He's so still, she imagines he fell asleep. But he never sleeps. Even when his body was old and he struggled to move, he refused to sleep.

She considers leaving again. The button's at her fingertips.

But she gives in and joins him at the railing. The sun's a beautiful red in the morning sky and it lights the kingdom in warm hues.

"You haven't been here long," she says. "And I've never seen you adapt to a locale. What makes this one different?"

"Who says it's different?"

His mannerisms remind her of her classmates after drinking. Fatigue takes over and her body remembers what it's been through. She lowers herself into a nearby bed and it's all too tempting to topple and nod off herself.

She can't think straight and she shudders with rolling waves. Regeneration energy, memory tells her. What memory, she can't say.

"Which are you?" she asks. "I've given up keeping track. Eleven?"

"Ten."

"And the version of you that fought in the war. Nine. What happened to him?"

That triggers something. He twitches and scowls and glances about. "He's not worth talking about. He was an angsty fellow. Had trouble opening up to people for too long."

"I don't remember that."

"He did watch you die."

"He…" Her throat closes and her eyes sting. She forces out, "He doesn't find me after the explosion."

He's watching her for something. He's waiting. It tears at her patience and she turns around.

He says, "I'm sorry, I truly am. But I'm not in the business of taking impersonations lightly."

"Can you wait just a little longer? I'll find your later self. I'll go back and I'll give him the proof. He's close enough that I can just wait out the years until he knows. What's one second in eternity?"

Silence. She curls up. The next click might be her last. She's lost track of everyone. She doesn't tell him she's met his last. She'll skip through the last of them, then work out a way back.

He kneels beside her. He doesn't smell like Grandfather anymore. It's all garden dirt, flowers, and metallic residue. He smells like the past and future collided.

"You can't be the Master," he says. "Or any Gallifreyan. But the Master I could see… Maybe one of those snow things that imitate people? I've known goo to make more convincing displays. But they don't stick around like you do…"

"I stick like goo?"

"Yeah, a little bit." He's not angry or kind. When she meets his eyes, he looks at her like he's wearing glasses he has to see over, eyes all narrowed and angled like that. "I wish I could believe you. I really do. But there's a spark of something there that doesn't quite… Well."

"Well what?"

"I won't tell you what I have left for you to take from me."

Her stomach twists at his measured tone. "I don't want anything of yours."

"Oh, don't pretend you don't want _something_. Everyone wants something. Right now, you're looking like you want… answers. Is that what you're chasing me down for? Information? No, it can't be just any old information."

"Why are you talking to me?" Susan asks. "You've chased me away this whole time like you're scared—"

He nods in short motion. "You wouldn't chase me across all of time and space for any old news. You want something I've not told anyone else?"

"I don't know what you've told everyone else." Her words feel strange, like it's not her speaking. Someone else speaks for her, like an autopilot left on in her head. An aftereffect of regeneration?

"Correction, you don't _care _what I've told everyone else. You want something only I can speak on as an authority."

"Tell me what I want to know then."

"You want to break the lock."

"Lock?"

"Please don't play dumb with me. Please. Don't."

She forces a swallow and her throat never felt so unwieldy. Lock. Time lock. Those events were… well, they had to be. But how did she get out of it, then? How could they talk like this?

He's distracted by the books on the shelf. "Look at me," she says.

He does so and it's halfhearted. "I'm looking.

"You're looking, but you don't see me." She reaches for him and his lack of reaction hurts more than if he hit her. She says, "Please… see me."

"I do see you."

That apathy is too much. That disconnect. That cruel uncaring. Maybe it's an act. Maybe he's just trying to goad her on to test her. Or maybe…

She stands. He stares up at her, still scrutinizing and still critical. Every one of him feels like a new person and with every meeting she wishes she could stay.

But autopilot kicks in. She jumps.


	11. Chapter 11

She stumbles through the vortex and fights to keep her memories. They fuzz in and out, but she wins. And she finds the Tardis sitting in a misty forest. It's warming up to leave. This is new. It's still earth… why is it always earth?

"Okay, older me," she says because it helps her think. "Who is it this time? … Wait, no. They're the same person. Which version is it this time?"

She steps up to the door and knocks. The rolling and dancing of the engines slows. The door opens.

When he steps through and looks down at her, she knows the expression. It's like the one he made when he found her on the Dalek ship.

"You?" he asks. "That can't be right…"

"I'm sorry for all the confusion," she says. "I regenerated somewhere in between. But you're about to enter something dreadful."

"I'm avoiding dreadful right now."

"You won't always. Look, I've had something I've meant to tell you. Believe me or not, I don't care anymore. Just listen to what I have to say."

He clamps his mouth shut and moves outside with her. The Tardis calms. The Tardis that she's chased this whole time as something to take her home, now fills her with grave reluctance.

He's distracted and won't hear what she means. She says it anyway: "Have hope. The sun will shine again."

"Is that why you've been following me?"

"No, not originally. I have something else I need to leave with a later incarnation. You'll see me again."

His eyes flicker between her and the sky. He's anxious to leave. She can't remember if this is before or after she's joined the fight.

"I've tried to figure out what you are," he says at length. "I'll have to get back to you with an answer."

"That's all right. You'll figure it out like you always do."

He's distracted enough by the chaos out there that he doesn't pay her heed. He only stays here to talk so he can get another piece to the—

"A puzzle?" she asks. "Is that all I am to you, now?"

He twitches and his brow furrows. She disrupted that train of thought and now he's realigning himself. "No."

"You're lying."

"Am not."

"You are."

"And how would you know?"

"I—" She stops herself. "I shouldn't tell you. Why not?"

"I should be asking you that." He's irritated. But irritation is a relief next to what he could be doing or saying or thinking.

She has to be a figment of his imagination. A bug that he can't get rid of. Something set to fail him. That's the only reason why she could know what he feels or thinks. But that's not right. She's just—

—Telepathic. How did she forget? And why hasn't he thought of that? Did she make him forget?

"If you'll excuse me…" He opens the Tardis' door.

"Wait." She takes his wrist. "Will you be careful?"

He pulls free of her. "Why do you care?"

"I want you to be okay. Please."

He gives one last narrow look before disappearing inside his ship. She catches an echo of her words to him from minutes ago about hope. But it's riddled with confusion and wariness and caution. Everything she doesn't want him feeling about her.

… Well, not everything yet. That'll come later.

She kicks a tree and snaps a branch. He's known her for decades! So many time she's done this and it's like she's a stranger still! She can't stay and she can't teach him to trust her! She could prove to him that she is who she is! If only he would listen!

She screams and the sound of it dies into the tree trunks. It doesn't echo and the sky doesn't thunder with her. She's alone and that's all the forest confirms back to her.

"You said you'd come back!" she cries at no one. "You said you'd find me again! You said to go forward in my beliefs! You promised! And then you abandoned me again! You left me over and over and over and over!"

The chittering of leaves mocks her cry. The shuffling of leaves teases her ache.

Susan draws a shuddering breath. "No regrets," she reminds herself. "No tears. No anxieties."

She's only pressed the button some ten times. There had to be others. She must have missed at least one regeneration. And she knows which one.

She turns and faces the dark and overcast sky before fidgeting with the control in her pocket.


	12. Chapter 12

It takes some looking to find the next one. And when she does, it's in an abandoned cathedral somewhere in southern Europe. Under the full moon of midnight, she finds him standing in a pool of stained light. And once he sees her, he moves.

She thinks at first that he's incensed, and she startles back. The intensity in his eyes is soul-shattering. The urgency in his steps matches her heartbeat.

He's not his original self. He's older. Another generation. That makes at least fourteen.

Fourteen. How did he get to fourteen? No, thirteen?

He grabs her and she kicks back. It hits his stomach and he buckles. She heats with embarrassment and straightens. He does too.

"Sorry," she says.

"The war. I know." He speaks like he's picked up an accent from somewhere else. "I remember."

"Remember what?"

"The war. Gallifrey isn't gone. And maybe that means you survived. If they brought back the Master, then they could bring you back too."

"Gone? Gallifrey?"

"Yes, I stored it away. Not initially… I thought I'd destroyed it. But you died before that. You exploded."

"Grandfather. I never died. I've only regenerated."

"But the Dalek ship. They found no sign of life. I mourned you… for _centuries_. You died without knowing a second life." He approaches her again, this time slowly and deliberately. He's long and thin and looks like a breeze will knock him over. "But you survived?"

"I did. I'm alive. I've always been alive. It's just taken the long way to find you again."

"I thought they'd stolen you. They haven't stolen you have they?"

"Who?"

"Anyone. Everyone."

"I… don't think so."

Despite his fragile appearance, he picks her up and spins about.

"I thought you dead!" he cries. He drops her and pulls away. He crouches to look her in the eyes, and she wobbles. She can't say if it's from the spin or the way those eyes pierce hers. "Here you are! My child, you've been here this whole time!"

"As have you." She grips his arms tight, desperate not to let go. She clings to the hope that he's truthful this time.

"My dear, dear, dear—" He hugs her again. He cries. "Oh, Susan. My precious child. My stars and my moons."

She cries, too. The elation of it is too big and the hope too bitter.

"I thought you a specter. I wanted to hate you. I did hate you."

It's all fuzzy. She barely sees through the tears, and emotion clouds her logic. She throws that all away and relishes the closeness of him. The reassuring presence that tells her everything will turn out okay.

"Why are you so old?" she asks when the silence goes too long. "Why do I see the ages when I look at you? Did you regenerate countless times? Did you learn to live out each life like you're supposed to? And yet you can't be half as old as you should be!"

He goes still. The velvet jacket of his feels too smooth. "… I glimpsed eternity."

"How? When?" She digs into his back as if it'll anchor her here forever.

"I can't tell you everything. Not tonight. But come with me and we'll find the Tardis. We'll sit and we'll talk. You'll tell me your story and I'll tell you mine."

"And will you leave me again?"

"You're not longer my ward. I'd protect you in every way I can, but it's no longer my decision."

"That hasn't stopped you before."

He doesn't respond to that.

"You know I can handle it," she says.

"No one can handle it."

"Then how are you still standing? After thousands of years, you're still traveling. You've seen worlds untold and realms uncharted. If you can still do it, then so can I. You've gone through untold companions and they've all left. I'm here."

"They also thought they wouldn't be affected. No one thinks they'll say goodbye."

"I'm different."

"So were they. So am I. You don't see it. You don't hear how long this song has gone on. You don't feel the strain of it in your bones."

"But I do. You've gone beyond my sight, but I've seen more of you than you know." She pulls away to look at him. To see the silver of his eyes and the reflection of his hair. "I've glimpsed some of your eternity. It's incomprehensible to me, but I see it."

"You're too young to know such things."

"Yet I look for it all the same. We're the only ones left of our family, are we not? If we can't bear the weight of the universe, then who will? Who else could ever be your equal?"

He cocks his head and pressed his lips into a thin line. His eyes are red and swollen. "You never met River, did you?"

"I don't think—" She stops because the name strikes a chord like midnight. "River Song? She was my teacher once…. And there was something odd about her, but I couldn't put my finger to it."

"She was your step-grandmother."

Susan sits next to him and leans against his shoulder. "She'd make a lovely grandmother. Where is she?"

Sadness leaks out in the creakiness of his voice. "Even she went away. Bad things happen to my companions, Susan. Things far worse than getting left with a loving husband."

"The loving husband wasn't where it went wrong. I've lost everything, including him. I'm ready to face the hunger of the universe as I have nothing else to give it."

"You'll find something. Something you don't want to lose.

"Something like you? Grandfather, you're not the only person allowed to suffer."

"What if I can't keep you alive? How do you expect me to live on?"

"You thought I was dead until now. You survived. I don't ask for any promises, Grandfather, just like I asked for none when we left."

He takes her hand and squeezes. His voice doesn't rasp with tears anymore, but he still sniffles like he's got a bad cold. She closes her eyes. She could stay here forever. "Don't leave me," she whispers.

"I won't."

She cries. It explodes out of her, the pent-up energy of it so much that she shakes. He holds her tighter and she turns to sob into his chest. He's twisted. He's different. He's worn by too many years. But he's warm and close and the first to hold her like this. She feels like a child again, scared of the dark corners and the recesses of night. They stay together until she calms.

"Where do you go from here?" he asks.

She blanks at the question. No one's asked her that. "To the next point."

"Which is?"

"Number thirteen. I've met eleven of you. That should leave one more…."

"Not… necessarily. How are you moving around?"

"Pre-coordinated warp points." She pulls out the device. "Like a game of dots. I've told you about it."

He reaches for it before catching himself. "Can you reconfigure it?"

"It's not playdough. I could never find the resources and it's on a timer. If I take too long, it'll wreck the hardcoded calculations."

"What cushion did you allow yourself?"

"Up to a day each jump."

"Does it reset each time? Can you store up extra staying power if you keep visits short?"

"No."

He swears and runs a hand through his hair. "I can take parts from the Tardis…"

"No."

"We can, it'll replace its own parts if we take the right ones."

"No."

He finally looks at her. Really looks at her.

"I've gotten bigger," she says as she realizes it. "Even since you last saw me. I won't run away and hide."

"It's not hiding."

"It's not what I had planned."

Defeat dawns on him. Maybe he's upset with her for not listening. Maybe he's upset with himself for not saving her. Maybe it's impossible to convince him she's not dead over his own trauma from the war.

"They wanted openings to kill you," she whispers. "That's why I hit all your weakest points."

He stills and gives her a harsh stare. "How would they know about my weakest points?"

"I imagine you told them."

"And what about every point after the war? Did I go back retroactively?"

"No, these ones I took from the pattern. They were harder to pick up, but I didn't study things like spatial-patterning for nothing. This isn't a low point, is it?"

"You threw these points together with nothing but a fob in an escape pod?"

She feels the trigger. "Not quite."

"You programmed it beforehand."

"I tired of fighting. I wanted to stop killing and I wanted to stop other people dying. But I couldn't. I developed an escape plan. I just… didn't realize it would work like this. I didn't realize I could slip through the time lock."

"You could have been killed. They could still prosecute you."

"Wait…" She pulls away from him. "How are you here? You thought everyone died. But not you?"

"Yes, well, about that…"

"You stole the Moment? You _used _it?"

He swallows hard and looks away. "You were the last straw."

"That means that I'm the last piece out of place. As soon as I go back, then it all resumes. Gallifrey returns. The Time Lock ends. The war is over? The Nightmare child, the Meanwhiles and the Neverweres? The Could've Been King? It's all gone?"

"Yeah, about that. The Time Lock's released and Gallifrey spins at the end of time and space. I, erm, returned there already."

"Then what are we waiting for?" She takes his hand and grips it tight. "Let's go home."

"I'd rather not."

"We don't have to stay! Why not pop in and see how things are going? Why not—?"

"Because I don't want to!"

She loses voice at his tone. He's angry and looking away and pressing a fist to his mouth. "Why not?" is all she thinks to ask.

"Because they're all bastards. We left for a reason, didn't we?"

"Yes, but—"

"I'm not going back there."

She reaches to touch his thoughts but hesitates. "I've missed too much," she says. "Can I just—? Can I look?"

"No!"

She could do it anyway, but it leaves a hole in her stomach to think of it. She shouldn't have stolen what she did. It feels like taking the ship from someone distracted with repairs. Instead she says, "You know, we could just stay on Earth forever. It is your home after all."

"It's less my home than it is yours."

"Maybe it's both."

He looks at her, face stained from tears and exhaustion showing through his drooping eyes. Or maybe they were always slanted like that? "There's a lot I can show you outside of Earth," he says.

"Whatever pace you want to go at." She leans against him again. They're both tense, but all she needs is time to unravel them both. "I want to hear everything, and we have forever to do it. I just have one more thing to do. Can I program your Tardis for the quickest trip?"

"You know she doesn't like quick trips."

"When she wants to, she does. Don't worry—I'll talk her into it." Because even though the memories are faint, instinct tells her the next set of numbers.

They rest together and she leaves Grandfather with coordinates and a delay before she makes the last jump.


	13. Chapter 13

She doesn't know how she accounted for that last one. Because this is the last point on her list. She knows because the fob dies with it. She meant for a one-way trip if it failed, says the ghostly echo of her older self. It takes her to London in the 1960s. No, 1970.

And he walks past her.

Susan's heart leaps into her chest and she moves to stop him, but something holds her back. His head is low, his shoulders slumped, and he mutters under his breath.

She walks at a distance behind him. He's alone. She doesn't know when he found time to be alone. Unless he finds time to be alone outside the records. Of course, he would have left a ton of holes in his history. Why wouldn't he?

"Doctor!" she yells because she can't _not_ make him stop.

He answers with a reluctant look. "Yes, child?"

"Where are you off to?" she asks. "It's such a nice day, I can't imagine you're alone?"

"Alone?" He shakes his head and mutters again. "Just looking for some peace and quiet. It seems trouble's made a good friend in me."

"Oh, I'm no trouble. Will you sit with me a while? I _am _alone, you see, and I can't stand it much longer."

"Why is it kids your age don't take to silence? What's so unbearable about quiet?"

"It's lonely."

"… I suppose it can be. It doesn't have to, though."

"So, let's be quiet together." She takes his arm and he straightens. "Just us, sitting on a bench, and watching the leaves fall. It's autumn, isn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose it is. Which one, I wonder?"

The sound of their steps and swirling leaves fills her ears. His coat sleeve scratches her bare wrist.

She wonders where she is now. It's like eons since her earth life yet walking here makes it feel like yesterday. She doesn't remember the date. Is she pregnant by now? Did she give birth? No, that comes later. Maybe they're considering adopting their first child.

She wants to ask Grandfather so many questions. But it feels fragile enough to walk with him that she opts to stay quiet. The road feels like clouds and the air tests her balance. But she holds strong.

She doesn't search his mind this time. She doesn't ask him for information. She doesn't need a way back. She doesn't worry about if he knows who she is or not. For all she knows, he might have been relieved to leave her with David. But he had to miss her eventually. Because he's a fool and has a terrible habit of convincing himself that suffering means happiness for others. He must have convinced himself she was happy the whole time without him.

But she's not going to split hairs on that now. She just listens to his mumbling and watches the autumn leaves dance about the road.

They walk together until dark. He makes an excuse and leaves her. Susan watches him go until he disappears around the corner. Then she takes too long to convince herself to find her rendezvous.

When she reaches the Tardis waiting for her, his (claimed) twelfth regeneration exits a bakery to greet her.

He's terribly fond of their pastries, as it turns out. He developed a taste for this exact bakery on this exact corner because of a girl with a familiar face guiding him through a gloomy and overcast day. That's what he says at least.

Maybe it's a story. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's both. She knows he'll say both if she asks.

She takes a seat inside and Grandfather hands her a cup of hot tea. She holds it close and savors its warmth in her hands. She breathes in the smell of hot bread and confections and she soaks in the foggy light of the wall fixtures. She tunes in to the hustle and bustle of the shop. She trades stories with Grandfather and he shows the first glint of delight since they parted after the Dalek invasion all those years ago.

They go quiet and he leans against the chair with a tired and satisfied smile. She's curious what he got up to before meeting up with her, but when she asks, he denies getting distracted.

She doesn't call his bluff. They silently agree to keep their secrets for now. Honesty can come after the tea is gone and the night's gone cold. For now, it's only them and the warmth of busy people. It's an old man and his granddaughter enjoying their treats.

It's... calm.


End file.
